About the Authors The Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition (MACLC) is a New York-based coalition of citizens, community and faith leaders, organizers, advocates, attorneys, and organizations. MACLC aims to give voice to absent perspectives on issues of national security, counterterrorism, law enforcement, and civil rights, especially as they impact Muslim communities in post-9/11 New York City. MACLC first formed in response to the publication of the New York City Police Department’s policy report entitled “Radicalization In The West: The Homegrown Threat.” The group aimed to engage the NYPD in a constructive dialogue to challenge the report’s false assumptions and harmful conclusions. MACLC met on three occasions with Commissioner Raymond Kelly and the authors of the NYPD Report, Mitch Silber and Arvin Bhatt, to register concerns and delineate flaws within the NYPD Report. In response to MACLC’s efforts, the Department only issued a clarification but did not disavow the report’s findings. The 2012 reporting on the NYPD surveillance program has essentially confirmed what MACLC had warned about in 2007 and 2008, and has led MACLC to join community leaders, elected officials, and other civil rights groups in calls for oversight, accountability and transparency. MACLC has also continued to seek to constructively engage with the NYPD. To that end, the Coalition has issued an invitation to Commissioner Kelly to a town-hall meeting to allow him to hear Muslim communities’ concerns with suspicionless surveillance. To date, that invitation has been ignored. The Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project is housed at Main Street Legal Services, Inc., the clinical arm of the CUNY School of Law. CLEAR primarily aims to address the legal needs of Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and other communities in the New York City area that are particularly affected by national security and counterterrorism policies and practices. Our work is defined by our relationships with communities and grassroots organizations whose members wish to shape and respond to national security and counterterrorism policies and practices affecting them. CLEAR’s community-oriented approach combines free legal representation with other services directed at satisfying the fuller range of community concerns. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), founded in 1974, is a national organization that protects and promotes the civil rights of Asian Americans. By combining litigation, advocacy, education, and organizing, AALDEF works with Asian American communities across the country to secure human rights for all. AALDEF focuses on critical issues affecting Asian Americans, including immigrant rights, civic participation and voting rights, economic justice for workers, language access to services, affirmative action, educational equity, housing and environmental justice, and the elimination of anti-Asian violence, police misconduct, and human trafficking. Inquiries should be addressed to: The Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Project CUNY School of Law 2 Court Square, Long Island City, NY 11101-4356 t: 718.340.4533 |f:.718.340.4478 [email protected] © CLEAR Project, AALDEF, and MACLC 1 MACLC, CLEAR and AALDEF are grateful to the following individuals for their contributions to the preparation of this report: AUThORS AND RESEARChERS Diala Shamas, Nermeen Arastu EDITORIAL Ramzi Kassem, Ken Kimerling, Amna Akbar ADDITIONAL RESEARChERS Gabriela Lopez, Michael Figura, Julia hernandez, hirra Amin REvIEw COMMITTEE Fahd Ahmed, Faiza Patel, Asim Rehman, Linda Sarsour DESIGN Joe Namy Acknowledgments This report would not have been possible without the many individuals who were willing to tell us their stories. Their desire to break the silence surrounding surveillance in their community in New York City, and to convey their community’s experiences, have guided our research and writing at every stage. The authors are also grateful to all the community groups, imams, Muslim Students Associations, and other organizers who trusted us and facilitated our research. In addition, we would like to thank Paige Austin, Tarek Ismail, Umair Khan, Margaret Fung, and Joseph Pace for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts. Finally, we would like to thank City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, the Liman Program at Yale Law School, and the Proteus Fund for their generous support. 2 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART ONE: Background: Mapping & Monitoring American Muslims ...................... 7 PART TwO: Findings ................................................................................................ 12 Section One: Suppressing Religion ..................................................................... 12 Section Two: Stifling Speech & Association ........................................................ 20 Section Three: Sowing Suspicion ........................................................................ 25 Section Four: Severing Trust in Law Enforcement .............................................. 32 Section Five: In Focus - Campus Life ................................................................... 39 PART ThREE: Responses to The NYPD Program ...................................................... 46 PART FOUR: Recommendations .............................................................................. 50 3 Executive Summary Since 2001, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has established a secret surveillance program that has mapped, monitored and analyzed American Muslim daily life throughout New York City, and even its surrounding states. In 2011, the unveiling of this program by the Associated Press (AP) and other journalists1 who had obtained leaked internal NYPD documents led to an outcry from public officials, civil rights activists, American Muslim religious leaders, and members of the public. Protesters and advocates held that such racial and religious profiling was not only an example of ineffective policing and wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars, but it also marginalized and criminalized a broad segment of American Muslims. Almost a year later, in August 2012, the Chief of the NYPD Intelligence Division, Lt. Paul Galati admitted during sworn testimony that in the six years of his tenure, the unit tasked with monitoring American Muslim life had not yielded a single criminal lead.2 exist between the police department and the communities it is charged with protecting. Section One of the findings highlights the impact of NYPD surveillance on religious life and expression. Interviewees felt that the NYPD’s spotlight on American Muslims’ practice of their faith, their degree of religiosity and their places of worship disrupted and suppressed their ability to practice freely. Many also indicated that within heterogeneous Muslim communities, this has resulted in the suppression of certain practices of Islam more than others. Interviews also highlighted the atmosphere of tension, mistrust and suspicion that permeates Muslim religious places – which the NYPD has infiltrated with informants and undercover agents, deeming them “hot spots.” These law enforcement policies have deeply affected the way Muslim faith is experienced and practiced in New York City. documents how NYPD surveillance has chilled American Muslims’ freedom of speech. issues, and quelled demands for law enforcement accountability. Parents discourage their children from engage. 1 Long-time police reporter and columnist Leonard Levitt also obtained many of the same documents, and published some of them in columns available on his website, www.nypdconfidential.com. 2 handschu v. Special Servs. Div., No. 71CIv.2203, Galati Dep. 128-129 (June 28, 2012), available at http://www.nyclu.org/ files/releases/handschu_Galati_6.28.12.pdf. 4 5 Section Three turns to the communal and social consequences of surveillance. As American Muslims learn that members of their own communities are recruited as informants or undercover officers to spy on their communities, an atmosphere of mistrust has settled in. Interviewees unanimously observed that everyone scrutinizes everyone, noting particular hesitation with regards to new faces in the community, or converts to Islam. Many interviewees admitted to shunning individuals who behaved differently, awkwardly, or even those who showed interest in political topics or in exploring Islam. Similarly, some described an aversion to those who appeared overtly religious or political, because they were assumed to be more likely targets of surveillance. Finally, in addition to suspicion within the American Muslim community, the section outlines consequences of NYPD scrutiny on American Muslim communities’ relationships with non-Muslims. American Muslims fear that non-Muslim Americans will view them with suspicion because law enforcement has branded them a population “of concern” – work or school relationships have suffered as a result, and Muslims’ political marginalization has been compounded. Section Four explores the distinct harm the NYPD surveillance program has had on the department’s relationship with American Muslims. An inability to trust their local police is deeply harmful to American Muslims, many of whom have worked hard since September 11 to develop positive relationships and constructive dialogue with their local precincts as well as the NYPD brass. Interviewees noted deep apprehension of the NYPD’s intentions and practices towards them. This has trickled